


we'll take a cup of kindness yet (for auld lang syne)

by lesbianjackrackham



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe, First Kiss, Jacobi is 17 and Kepler is 22, M/M, New Year's Eve, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-14 23:09:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16922214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianjackrackham/pseuds/lesbianjackrackham
Summary: December 31st, 1999.Daniel hops a bus down to Chicago with a fake ID and almost seventy dollars he earned shoveling snow in his neighborhood for six dollars a driveway and nothing resembling a plan.





	we'll take a cup of kindness yet (for auld lang syne)

Daniel wears functional alcoholic like a badge of honor, kind of like the way some other people do, except he holds himself in a class above. He’s not _that_ kind of functioning alcoholic, like the guys who graduate high school and don’t go any farther than the 7-11 up the street, smoking Pall Malls on the stoop and buying beer for the kids that slip them too much babysitting money in sweaty, crumpled bills. Or like his mother and her friends, silently drinking as much as their husbands at a tailgate while hiding hangovers under outlet mall sunglasses.

He drinks as much as a growing teen should, keeping an appropriate buzz through the weekend while he shows his face at the latest party before ducking out to get stoned and shoot cans in the woods or set off firecrackers and bottle rockets over the lake with whomever follows him.

And when he wanders back home Sunday morning his younger sister narrows her eyes over her homework and his father makes a half-hearted compliment on his social life from the couch, some passive-aggressive comment on how Daniel’s doing well enough without playing football, Mr. Popularity, and Daniel says _yessir_. And his father says, _don’t take that tone with me_ , and Daniel says, _what tone, sir_ and escapes back to the lake with a six-pack of beer he buys from the guys at the 7-11.

There’s nothing else to do when you’re seventeen and gay and in _Wisconsin_.

And then it’s the turn of the millennium, and people are talking like the world might end. His mother buys cans of food and jugs of water to store in their basement, just in case. Instead of hunkering down to wait for it all to go to shit, his father decides to go to base and _help out_ , which is bullshit because he’s not even a real soldier, but it makes it easier to mumble some nonsense at his mother as he slips out the door while she sits glued to the television.

He hops a bus down to Chicago with a fake ID and almost seventy dollars he earned shoveling snow in his neighborhood for six dollars a driveway. The money is supposed to go towards college or prom tickets or something, but he has no real plans for either at the moment. Right now, this seems like a better idea.

It takes just over two hours, and he sleeps because there’s nothing to see, nothing but churches and highway motels and strip malls until his seat partner elbows him that they've arrived.

Chicago, he finds, as he stumbles out of the bus depot like a fucking newborn deer, is huge, and bright, and it stinks to high hell, as if the snow crusting the city and the frozen river manages to magnify the smell of exhaust and piss. The city is packed with bodies in puffy coats, some huddled against the concrete, amorphous and slowly freezing to sidewalk, but most are standing, necks bent against the wind and moving in every direction. Everyone is trying to get somewhere else, fast, and he gets it. He gets it.

Daniel takes another bus east, and another one north, and with the help of the paper map he took from the station he makes it to Halsted Street on the north side. If the rainbow pylons lining the street are any indication, he’s in the right place.

No one looks especially gay, but he doesn’t really know what he’s looking for. He doesn’t really have a plan for this night; it didn’t start any more than a vague notion, an idea he just got lucky enough to test. Step one was get the fuck out of Wisconsin, just for the night. Step two was get somewhere and drink in the New Year with people who had no idea who he was, people he didn’t hate with something that stung of self-loathing.

There’s no step three, but he’s willing to improvise.

The first bar doesn’t let him in. The bouncer takes one look at his fake and sends him back into the night. At the second bar the bouncer tries to confiscate his ID, but Daniel grabs it out of his hands and slips away. There’s no one checking ID at the third bar, not outside, or maybe the bouncers’ on a smoke break or something, so he sneaks in with another group, hunched into his coat.

Inside is loud as hell, somehow both dark and too bright all at once. He pays three dollars for a PBR because it’s the only thing he recognizes on draft and tips a dollar after the bartender asks if he wants to start a tab.

There are too many people. He sips his beer for something to do, trying to find a place to stand where he’s not going to get tripped over. It’s only 10 pm and everyone’s waiting for the ball to drop in New York. He kinda thought Chicago would be above that and actually valued their own midnight, but it’s like they’ve got the same Midwestern complex as everyone else, knowing they’re just not as important as the rest of the country.

Maybe he should have taken a bus to New York instead.

By his second beer he’s feeling a bit more comfortable, and by his third he accepts a kazoo and a pair of glasses that spell out 2000 over his eyes from a drunk woman. Her group cheers when he blows it, but before he can say anything they move away, onto the next person down the row.

At this point the bar thins out, for some reason, party hoppers finding another place to ring in the New Year, but he doesn’t want to follow them and risk losing his ID. With nothing else to do he goes to the bathroom and then orders a fourth beer, but when he turns around the bouncer he didn’t see earlier looks over like he realized he never checked Daniel in.

Near the back he spots an empty booth and he slides into the seat facing away from the entrance, slouching down to stay out of sight.

Someone coughs.

Across from him is a guy, one eyebrow raised impressively high.

“Oh shit,” he blurts out. “Sorry. I thought this was— I didn’t see you.”

“That’s alright,” says the guy, smiling. He has a near unintelligible accent, a little bit of a gruff southern twang, though Daniel’s three and a half beers in, so what the hell does he know. The guy is also ridiculously attractive, cropped dark hair and a chin so sharp Daniel thinks he would cut himself on it. He’s in his twenties, maybe. Not too much older than Daniel, but projecting ease and confidence that didn’t originate in the glass in front of him.

“Sorry,” Daniel says again. He starts to get up, sees the bouncer, and then quickly sits back down. “Uh.”

“Hiding from someone?”

“No. Yeah. Look can I— I’ll buy you a drink if you do me a huge favor? I have... a temporary ID, right now, because of this thing, and I technically didn’t get it checked up front and the bouncer keeps looking at me, so...”

The guy waits for him to continue, and that’s when Daniel realizes he has absolutely no plan.

“No. Wait. Sorry. This isn’t your— I’ll just.” He starts to slide out of the booth, but the guy raises his hands, palms up, and motions for him to stay.

“Relax,” he says, and for some reason Daniel does. “Sit a minute.”

“Uh, okay,” says Daniel. He sits for a second, and he doesn’t dare turn around but he thinks the bouncer got distracted or maybe got called back outside. “Thanks. I’m Daniel, by the way.” He reaches his hand across the table, and the guy grins and meets it.

“Warren,” he says warmly. “I like your glasses.” Cheeks flushing, Daniel pushes them off of his face so they’re resting on his forehead instead and takes a sip of beer.

“Thanks,” he mumbles into his almost empty glass. “Someone gave them to me.”

“They’re festive.”

“Yep.”

There’s a solid thirty seconds of silence and Daniel wants to _die_ , but the guy just keeps sitting there, smiling at him with a genuine twinkle in his eyes.

“So, Daniel,” Warren says, gently breaking the silence. “Are you in school around here?”

“Uh, up in Wisconsin.”

“Madison?”

“Yeah,” he lies.

“What are you studying?”

“Oh, haven’t really decided yet. Probably engineering of some kind.”

“Smart,” says Warren, and Daniel shrugs.

“I mean, I don’t know.”

“No, I know plenty of engineers. Never had the taste for anything like that myself, I’m more of a... hands on kind of guy.” He taps his forehead. “But you have to be smart. And you look like a smart guy.”

“Heh. Thanks. Uh, are you,” Daniel clears his throat. “With school?”

“Not in the traditional sense. You could consider me self taught.”

“Nice. Nice. Everyone, you know, does their own thing,” he says, nodding a little stupidly. “Do you… What brings you to Chicago?”

“This and that. Work, this time.”

“Oh, cool. So you’ve been to the city before? This is actually my first time here.”

“Really? You know, I grew up here, down on the South Side.”

“Yeah?”

“My father had an office by the old Comiskey Park, and the summer they took it down I used to go and watch the demolition. Now, my father didn’t like that I was spending my summer sitting around, so when he saw me just outside his window watching the guys work, he marched right down, grabbed me by the back of my shirt, and told the site manager to put me to work. After that, every morning until school started up again I’d get on the bus just as the sun was getting up and start taking down that old stadium. Turned out I was pretty good at the work—sorting through the rubble, that kind of thing. And since I was smaller than the other guys I could get where they couldn’t. Found all sorts of things. Mostly garbage, but some more interesting stuff. ” Warren takes a sip from his glass. “To make a long story short? At the end of the summer I owned the world’s largest collection of White Sox memorabilia.”

“Wow,” Daniel says, eyes wide. “That’s... really cool.” Warren hums. “Do you still have it?”

“Donated it. Never was much of a baseball fan anyways.” Daniel snorts.

“Me neither. Must be nice that work brings you back here.”

Warren gives him a slow, lingering look and says, “It can be.”

“Hey,” says the bouncer, coming up to the booth, and Daniel flinches and then sinks into his seat. “Can I see your ID?”

“Is there a problem?” Warren asks with a bright smile.

“Just need to see this guy’s license.”

“Didn’t you give it to the bartender, honey? With your credit card?”

“Uh,” Daniel says, mouth suddenly very dry. “I.”

“Which bartender?”

“The one back here,” Warren says, gesturing to a second bartop Daniel hadn’t even noticed before. “Tab’s under John.” The bouncer nods, holds his hand out in a _stay here for a second motion_ , and then walks over to the second bar. As soon as he’s out of range, Warren tilts his head towards the door and raises both eyebrows.

There are more people outside then there were inside the bar, and it’s easy to slip into the crowd. It’s colder than he remembered, and he can see his breath amongst the fog of cigarette smoke. He tugs his hat out of his pocket and shoves it over his ears, knocking the glasses back over his eyes. Somehow he ends up leading them, and Warren, who has maybe two inches on him, stays close by, nudging their shoulders together as if to let Daniel know he's still there.

They get maybe half a block down the sidewalk before he sidesteps into an alley to avoid a rush of people exiting another bar. Warren follows him, watching as Daniel pulls his hands out of his pockets and blows on them, briefly steaming up the two zeros acting as lenses on the glasses. When his vision clears, he sees Warren has taken another step forward. He takes Daniel’s bare hands between his own gloved ones with a light squeeze.

“Daniel,” he says, and Daniel licks his lips.

All around them are the shouts of the countdown clock, and he tips up his chin at the call of _five, four, three, two, one!_

Warren closes the distance, pushing him back against the brick with a soft press of lips. His face is cold and wind chapped but his mouth is warm. Daniel chases the heat, deepening the kiss and bumping his teeth against Warren’s until the other man lets him in. The plastic glasses dig into their faces. Around them are cheers, and singing, and the whistle of firecrackers exploding in the street. It’s only 11 o’clock.

“Daniel,” Warren says, pulling away with a soft sigh and releasing their hands. He takes the glasses off Daniel’s face and traces a gloved finger over the mark they left on the bridge of his nose. Daniel shoves his hands back in his pockets, and then, chewing on his bottom lip, leans forward to tuck his hands in the pockets of Warren’s coat. His heart is racing a little bit, and he hopes the other man can’t feel it. Or maybe he hopes he can. He isn’t sure.

“How old are you?” Warren asks, and Daniel bites his lip a little harder.

“Twenty,” he says, and Warren just looks at him. “Nineteen. Eighteen. Seventeen...”

“Daniel.”

“Seventeen," he admits. "For real.” Warren huffs and tilts his head, but he doesn't tug away.

“Do you have some friends that you need to meet up with or…”

“No. No, I’m down here all alone.”

“And I’m sure you didn’t arrange a hotel or anything like that?”

“Nope.”

“Alright,” he says, “Daniel, would you like to—”

“Yes.”

“Let me finish first," Warren says, frowning, and Daniel kind of loves him for it. "You have no idea what you’re agreeing to.”

Daniel takes a step back and pulls Warren with him against the wall, and Warren lets himself be led, lets Daniel lean up and steal another kiss. “Yes,” he says, and feels Warren's answering smile.

**Author's Note:**

> @lesbianjackrackham on tumblr and dreamwidth


End file.
